


MoThErFuCkInG bEsT fRiEnD

by Sinderlin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Hallucinations, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 18:57:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinderlin/pseuds/Sinderlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CG: I REALLY CANNOT, AND SURE AS FUCK DON'T WANT TO, HOLD ALL THESE CORPSES.<br/>CG: WHY CAN'T I HOLD ALL THESE DEAD PEOPLE?<br/>CG: BECAUSE I'M NOT A FUCKING PSYCHOPATHIC OCTOPUS. THAT'S WHY.</p>
            </blockquote>





	MoThErFuCkInG bEsT fRiEnD

At first he blamed his heightened irritability on the close quarters with so many other trolls, and that incessant honking that erupted from the center of the room whenever Gamzee turned or stretched or wrangled another troll into the pile, or anything, really. As much as everything grated on his thinkpan, that noise in particular seemed to dig nails deep into his temples and pound at them with hammers of unrelenting fury. Terezi's shrill laughs were almost a massage in comparison. Sollux suggested in his usual manner that perhaps he ought to take a nap sometime soon, to which Karkat replied with a flurry of insults and a overly dramatic speech about how you'd have to be shithive maggots to nap for a friendly chat with the horrifying beasts from beyond.

Every moment that ticked by seemed to drive him further and further toward some unseen edge, his brows knitting tighter than anyone thought possible and his eyes as wide as the pink moon back on alternia. Nobody seemed to notice until his chair clattered backwards onto the floor, his stock-still figure stiff-backed and rooted before his screen. A few furious mashes on his keyboard closed whatever window had been open and he whirled around and stomped furiously out of the room. Everyone looked over their shoulders to quietly regard the spectacle. A whisper of "what's wrong with karkitty?" broke the silence for a mere moment.

He had to go, to hide away in his wing of the lab, to shut out that honking and forget...Forget what? He'd already forgotten, but he knew he had to keep on marching through those cold metal cooridoors. It felt like someone was clapping pans over his ears, like that stupid cymbal-wielding monkey doll was playing his skull like a drum. He slid through half-broken doors and worked his way through hallways littered with junk, unconsciously choosing the most difficult path to traverse. He squeezed himself through a tight hall and into a room no larger that his old respiteblock and dark as pitch. Palms pressed to the walls, he felt his way into the far corner and dropped to his knees. He lowered himself onto his side and curled into a ball, unable to understand what was wrong with him but desperate to make it stop. The crushing silence and suffocating darkness enflamed his shredded nerves just as badly as any horn-pile, since it was so easy to imagine what you couldn't see, so easy to make up what you couldn't hear. So easy to mistake that metallic smell of warmed metal beneath him for the thick smell of blood. For a moment, for one terrible moment, he remembered what he'd been so horrified by, then the toppled over the edge and into the unforgiving abyss of insanity.

Blood. A pool of blood was growing under him. That sharp tang underlayed with sweat...He shrieked and rocked onto his hip, slamming himself into the wall. The pool of blood was growing, spreading across the floor. He peered through the darkness, desperately searching for the source. A thick-jointed hand lay in the only spot of light his eyes encountered. Karkat struggled up and felt his way along the wall, stepping toward the hand. Wood splinters crunched wetly under his heels; How Equius got here never crossed his mind. He nudged the hand with his foot, strikingly blue blood sloshing over his shoes. His head felt as though it was filled with cotton, his eyes straining through the dark. He sobbed. It wasn't true. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will the image away, feeling that salty, musky tang fill his nose.  
"Hey, motherfuckin best friend," came a quiet whisper in his ear. Karkat shrieked and whirled around, slipping in the blood with a squelching squeak. He landed flat against Equius' body; he could feel those coarse, blood and sweat-soaked locks against his neck.  
"Why," he choked out,reaching back and finding the thick slice of throat missing from the blueblood's neck. He felt air tickle his ear, cool breaths sweeping past his face.  
"WELCOME TO THE MOTHERFUCKING DARK CARNIVAL."

He didn't even realize he'd moved, but he found himself on the other side of that cramped excuse for a hallway. His chest hurt and his head was spinning, and the dim light wasn't making what happened in that room seem any less real. The faintest honk eminated from that black-as-oil room. He had to run. That's all he knew. He clambered over heaps of junk and frantically shoved himself back through broken doors, heart pounding and ears pricked for that quiet honk. He reached the main junction of his wing; now he had to decide whether to try hiding again or face the possibility that everyone he even remotely liked might be...No, he wasn't going to think like that. He chose to run down the more accessible hall, hoping sheer distance would protect him.

The walls were beginning to change, warping into a tunnel, changing color, changing feel, becoming the catacombs of his youth. He didn't question it, he just ran. Culled grubs left pools of blood and chunks of flesh among the tunnels, occasionally painting the walls. The splatters of color thickened into long streaks of color, like finger paint dragged along the dirt walls, sick rainbows on either side of him, until all at once they faded out. He slowed, chest heaving and sweat beading on his forehead. He looked back at the long streaks on the walls, then forward. The walls weren't entirely bare. There were...drawings? Forcing his legs to move, he bent before one of the drawings. It looked like a crude drawing of Vriska, labelled with "hiss!!". He almost laughed. He scooted along on his knees, examining the drawings with mild amusement, slowly calming down from his awful encounter. A silly doodle of Equius with Nepeta on his shoulders read "best meowrails!". He felt his muscles stiffen. His eyes slowly glided over to the rough grid to his left. Shipping...chart. Standing up and twisting around, he briefly examined the other walls. More of the same.  
Some of the pictures were drawn in green.  
No.  
Oh no.  
Honk.  
He screeched again and took off down the cave, nearly tripping over something, he didn't care to know what, racing forward until he could see the cave morph back into the cold laboratory halls. He knows better than to stop for breath, running until his lungs felt fit to explode, fleeing the soft honks behind him. Shit, end of the hall. He almost cried at the idea of being trapped with no way out when...when HE got here. He slumped against a wall, huffing raspily. He needed a game-plan if he wanted to live through this. DID he want to live through this? Shit, he needed to find Terezi and warn her. OH, duh, husktop!

\--CG began pestering GC--  
CG: TEREZI  
CG: TEREZI ANSWER ME.  
CG: HURRY HURRY HURRY FUCKING HURRY YOUR LITTLE ASS UP  
GC: F1RST OF 4LL, MY RUMP 1S PLUMP 4ND F1T TO SQU33Z3  
CG: OH MY FUCK NOT RIGHT NOW.  
GC: OK, J33Z3, WH4TS THE B1G D34L >:?  
CG: WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? THE BIG DEAL IS THAT THE CLOWN HAS FUCKING LOST IT AND YOU NEED TO RUN.  
CG: RIGHT NOW.  
CG: LIKE, SOMEBODY LIT A FIRE UNDER YOUR PLUSH-ASS RUMP OR WHATEVER AND YOU--FUCK WHATEVER JUST FUCKING RUN.  
GC: WH4T? G4MZ33S R1GHT H3R3...4ND H1GH 4S 4 K1TE, 3H3H3H3 >:]  
CG: WHAT  
CG: BUT  
CG: I SAW  
CG: HE WAS  
GC: K4RKL3S, 1 TH1NK YOU N33D TO "C4LM YO T1TS", TO QUOT3 4 C3RT41N H4NDSOM3 HUM4N  
CG: YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, THIS IS SERIOUS!  
CG: FUCK, ILL COME GET YOU AND...AND SHOW YOU, IF I HAVE TO.  
CG: I'M SO FUCKING SERIOUS, TEREZI, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE  
CG: OH MY GOD  
GC: WH4T NOW CR4ZYP4NTS  
CG: I'M NOT CRAZY YOU CRAZY--I HAVE TO GO  
CG: FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFCUFKFFCKUFK  
\--CG ceased pestering GC--  
GC: >:?

Fucking fucking fuckity fuck fuck that fucks fucks, fuck! You recaptcha your husktop and scramble into a dark corner, watching long legs stride to the end of the hall, sneakers trailing bloody footprints. Karkat gagged at the smell of rotten meat. He prayed for that figure to turn the other way and go back down that hall...  
"Who's next, buddy? ARE YOU FUCKIN NEXT?"  
Karkat bit his tongue to stop a sob from escaping. Relief washed over him as the lanky legs slowly moved back down the hall. Minutes felt like hours, but he had to wait until the last of the footsteps had faded before he got up. God, what was that smell? It was going to make him vomit. He stepped out of the shadows and back into the poorly lit metal halls. Rotting blood. So much blood. How did he not see this before? No, of course, Gamzee brought it with him just to torture him. Blue and green caked onto the walls, "HoNk" smeared over every inch of the hall in blues and green. Wait...blueS? Plural? He brought his face closer to one of the "hOnK"s despite the awful stench. Cerulean blue. His jaw almost hit the floor. How quickly was his "MoThErFuCkIn BeSt FrIeNd" going to pick them off? He turned to stare blankly down the hall once again. There was no cave tunnel in sight this time, but what he almost tripped over was still there. He leaned over, elbows dug into his thighs, and emptied his stomach on the floor. Nobody deserved that kind of death, especially not someone so sweet. He wouldn't be able to tell it was her if it wasn't for all the green and the infamous blue tail. Her hat was missing, but that wasn't all that surprising compared to...to all of this. Another of his friends. Dead. Even if Vriska and Equius barely counted as friends, this made the count three. Well, he assumed Vriska was...

He found himself back at the junction. He slowly made his way down the hall that would lead him back to the main hub. splatters of blood squelched underfoot, and a quiet voice in the back of his head chimed "He's going to make sure he's the only friend left alive, you'll be best friends forever," and he almost vomited again. The transportalizer pad was covered in cerulean and splatters of green. An arm lay in the center of the pad. It wasn't an arm of flesh and bone, but...He kicked the mechanical arm off the transportalizer pad with a cringe and zapped back into the main hub.

"Oh my god. OH my FUCKING GOD," He mumbled hoarsely, blank-faced. Colorful trails of blood led from one transportalizer pad to another in the hub. Almost every color was there, except his. He blinked and it was gone. He blinked again and Gamzee was staring him straight in the eye in the center of the room, face-paint smudged and mixed with blood, Nepeta's hat upon his head and a scarf tossed over his shoulder. They were trophies. Vriska's glasses, with one lense popped out so he could see, green lipstick contrasting with the blue blood splattered all over his cheek, Feferi's tiara precariously perched on his head. Gamzee grinned, looking disgusting and ridiculous and completely shithive maggots. He blinked and let out a hoarse scream, but before he could even lift a foot to flee, Gamzee was gone. "Or maybe you'll be next," the voice chimed in his head. "Shut up, shut up, shut up," he whined, slowly shaking his head. There was..no SURE proof they were all dead. He didn't see any trophies for Sollux or Terezi on that... that clown, that was good, right? He stumbled numbly off his transportalizer pad and toward Sollux's. He'd already seen his longtime friend die once. Twice wasn't an option.

Sollux hadn't been in the computer room for a long time, so he hoped that just meant his friend was busy with a personal project. He'd find out soon enough. A zap later and he was in Sollux's wing of the lab. It was no different than any of the others, cold and dim and metal. The occasional broken keyboard or discarded electronic component did give it a distinctly "sollux" feel, though. In other words, inconsiderate and disorganized. Karkat felt a little worry dissipate at the normal disorder of his friend's blocks. 

"H-hey fuckass!" He called, folding his arms across his chest. There was a long silence, then a quiet reply of "honk". Karkat nearly jumped out of his skin. No. No no no. This could NOT be happening. He peeked into the side-rooms one by one as he moved down the hall, eyes straining for any chance sighting of blue-and-red light. It was too dark in here, no comforting glow of computer screens. He chewed his lip apprehensively as he came to the final stretch of halls.

"Sollux? Stop joking around, I...I'm serious, you here?" Karkat's voice faded to a nervous whisper, overcome with the sound of his footsteps, too loud in the empty hall. Maybe he has headphones on, He rationalized, maybe he's just in one of those moods. A door at the end of the hall was marked with a crude yellowish gemini symbol. He slid the door open and peeked inside. There he was. Good. He fell asleep on the keyboard. Figures.

"Sollux, you jackass, I was calling you," Karkat hisses, stomping over to his friend's side. He flicked the back of Sollux's head. "This is a really assholish thing to be doing right now, you know," he muttered, shaking Sollux's shoulders. Sollux rolled a bit from the shaking and fell back out of his chair. Karkat stood, dumbfounded, staring into the same face he'd seen on his screen when sollux first died. His entire brain shut down, leaving him immobile and staring with unparalleled numbness. After an eternity, he pried away to look at the screen. It was his usual coding, ended abruptly with a nonsense-mash, most likely from when his head his the keyboard. He looks back down at Sollux, feeling that odd sense of impossibility washing over him, but believing in what his eyes told him was true. He felt horrible guilt, like a stone lodged in his throat, and turned away, sitting in Sollux's now empty chair. The keyboard was covered in blood. It had that sharp edge to it, a sort of a spice, almost like his blood had been sprinkled with exotic herbs. It felt so odd to think those things, but somehow his head was so strange now that he couldn't bring himself to question it. He opened up trollian on the computer and signed himself in.

\--CG began pestering GC--  
CG: HEY TEREZI?  
GC: F33L1NG B3TT3R NOW, 4R3 W3? >:]  
CG: NO, NOT REALLY. I'M NOT SURE I  
GC: WH4T  
GC: K4RKL3S YOU H4V3NT R3SPOND3D FOR F1V3 M1NUT3S  
GC: 1TS RUD3 TO K33P 4 L4DY W41T1NG >:[  
CG: WHO'S IN THE LAB RIGHT NOW?  
GC: 4LL TH3 USU4L P3OPL3, WHY? >:?  
GC: 4R3 YOU OV3R YOUR "G4MZ33 1S CR4ZY RUN 4W4Y" TH1NG Y3T?  
GC: B3C4US3 H3S ST1LL H3R3, CH1LL 4S 4 BRO C4N B3 W1THOUT FR33Z1NG  
CG: TEREZI, THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.  
GC: 1M T4K1NG TH1S V3RY S3R1OUSLY  
GC: 1M B4R3LY M4K1NG 4NY JOK3S OR L4UGH1NG, 1 4M 1N COMPL3T3 L3G1SL4C3R4TOR MOD3  
CG: GOOD, BECAUSE THE BODY COUNT JUST KEEPS PILING UP OVER HERE.  
CG: I REALLY CANNOT, AND SURE AS FUCK DON'T WANT TO, HOLD ALL THESE CORPSES.  
CG: WHY CAN'T I HOLD ALL THESE DEAD PEOPLE?  
CG: BECAUSE I'M NOT A FUCKING PSYCHOPATHIC OCTOPUS. THAT'S WHY.  
GC: H3H3H3H3 YOU R34LLY MUST B3 GO1NG NUTS  
GC: YOU M4DE 4 JOK3  
GC: 3V3N 1F 1T W4S MORB1D 4ND NOT V3RY GOOD... >:[  
CG: YOU'D BE MORBID TOO IF YOU JUST FOUND MULTIPLE DEAD BODIES AND WERE RUNNING FROM A PSYCHOPATH.  
GC: 1 TOLD YOU K4RKL3S, G4MZ33 1S 1N H3R3 W1TH TH3 R3ST OF US 4ND H3S F1N3  
CG: WAIT  
CG: FUCK  
CG: OH MY GOD  
CG: HOW DO I KNOW HE'S NOT IMPERSONATING YOU  
CG: COULD HE DO THAT  
CG: FUCK FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK HE TOTALLY COULD OH MY GOD  
GC: K4RKL3S...  
CG: NONONONONONONONOONONONONONONONONO  
\--CG ceased pestering GC--

He hurriedly signed off and got out of the chair. He wished he could at least put Sollux's body somewhere more dignif-oh. When he looked down at Sollux, he wasn't anything like what he first saw. There was so much more blood, his eyes hadn't just bled, they were gone. His nose was broken in two places, his mouth bashed in. Karkat slapped a hand over his mouth and felt a wave of nausea sweeping over him. Could his brain just not handle seeing this at first? Is that why it just replaced it with that face from his memory? He wondered if it had been worse than the glub. It looked bad. Awful, in fact. To think his.."best friend" was capable of this...He wanted to vomit again. Sollux was mangled, horribly manged. He thought of Nepeta and dry-heaved. How could ANYONE be capable of this? This went beyond murder. This was sadistic sociopathy at its finest, where playing with your food had become a gory art. He flipped Sollux face-down and ran.

Quiet honks chased him down the hall as he sprinted for the transportalizer pad, soft voices suggesting that maybe he was already the last man standing. Maybe he'd be better off offing himself than dying like his friends did. You have so many sickles in your inventory. It would be so much easier. He made it back to the main hub, then darted into the "secret" room and threw himself on the wand pile and cried. Soft footsteps echoed through the main hub room. Honk. Karkat's eyes shot wide open and he scrambled to the other side of the pile and hunkered down. Right next to Eridan. How many times have you wanted to vomit today? There was a hole punched through his midsection that caused his innards to bulge out. His face was stuck in a terrified grin, tears stained on his face. His infamous scarf was gone, and his neck looked as though it had been thoroughly wrung. Karkat muffles his horrified sobs in his arm, stuck beside this corpse until those footsteps went away again. He looks around while he waits, hoping against hope for some secret door. As his gaze returns to the wand pile, he notices something that doesn't belong. A daggerlance. A daggerlance covered tip to hilt in brown sludge. How many times would you have to stab someone to get that much half-dry blood caked on?

The footsteps are fading away. He makes a break for it, dashing across the pads and to the lower lab levels. For a moment he thought he heard footsteps following him, but whoever it was gave up after a few minutes. Karkat knew stairs were something you got warned about, so he at least took it easy on the stairs. At the foot of the stairs, an odd shape came into view. He sat on the second-to-last stair and peered at the odd shape. Tavros' legs. Huh. Well, that's not so horrifying. Tavros lost his real legs a while back, so these are no different than any other piece of junk lying around. He shrugs and sits back to take a breather, patting the useless pair of legs with a half-smile. At least this thing isn't anything to freak out about. Minutes tick by and he wonders if maybe, just maybe, Terezi at the least might be mostly ok. Alive. Not dead. Pretty much anyone being alive would be a nice surprise at this point, he though. Except Gamzee. You know he's alive and that makes you want to cry and hide under something and pray he never ever ever finds you.

He stretches and gets up, rubbing his eyes. His mind is so exhausted from all this he's not sure he can even be all that effected by another pile of bodies. Or even a hundred bodies. Maybe. He hopes. No, he'd probably just flip his shit and start crying but it's nice to think that maybe he's too far gone to care. He sneaks down the hall, cursing the soft squeak of his sneakers. Turn after turn takes him deeper into the lower lab, past rooms full of monsters in giant tubes and rooms full of sciencey-looking stuff. He supposes he dark into one of those to hide if he had to. His husktop chimed at him. He took it out and muted it, then returned it to its designated card. At least it looked like Gamzee hadn't been down here yet. Karkat slowly opened one of the closed doors and slipped inside. He slid under one of the larger pieces of equipment and curled up, letting his eyelids droop. He almost felt safe. Almost. That little voice in the back of his head chimed "You're never safe, not until he's dead,". He chided the voice for its stupid suggestion, he could never win against someone like that. It would be suicide.  
Honk.  
He starts awake, unaware he'd even drifted off. He can't remember what just startled him, so he relaxes again.  
Honk.  
The noise, louder this time, hits his ear and rattles his brain.  
"Hey best friend. LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE UP, MOTHERFUCKER. I'll find you. HIDE AND SEEK IS SO MOTHERFUCKING FUN," comes that grating voice, alternating between calm and fury. Karkat feels all his previous relief washed out of him at the rough rasp of Gamzee's voice. He stays still as stone, listening to the rough breathing and occasional honk coming from behind him, back by the door. Footfalls rang against the metal floor. Gamzee was getting closer. Bangs and screeches and horrible grating noises bounced through the room as Gamzee hunted for him, toppling equipment and breaking whatever he couldn't move. He let out a scream of rage and frustration and kicked furiously at the piece of equipment Karkat was hiding under. If it hadn't been bolted to the ground, it would have flipped right over. "IT'S NOT FUCKING FUNNY TO HIDE FROM YOUR BEST FRIEND, KARKAT. I'll go keep Tavros company and wait for you to change your mind and stop running like a MOTHERFUCKING WRIGGLER." Footsteps faded slowly as Gamzee stomped out in a fury, club dragging along the ground. Karkat shivered weakly, jaw clamped shut and hands clenched so tight his nails dug bright red crescents in his palms. He slowly crawled out from under the now half-collapsed piece of lab equipment. Whatever it had been, it was a twisted piece of crap now. Karkat staggered up to his feet and peeked out the door. Long scratch marks in the floor lead back to the stairs. He decided it would be really, really smart to go the opposite direction. 

The light here is even worse, so dim he can't see more than ten feet in front of him. That could be a problem if he needs to run. He looks around after a while and notices that this area has overhead paths and paths below. It's like a crisscrossing maze of catwalks, dangerous enough due to the lack of railing but made insanely moreso by the awful lighting. One of them connects back into the main hub. He mulls over the thought of going back to the computer lab to see if even one person is ok, then decides to at least try. He inches along, flinching at every sound, nearly falling off the edge several times. Finally he finds some stairs to the next catwalk up and lurches his way up. This catwalk had another catwalk directly above it. He could see the support bars under it, shiny enough to reflect a morphed image of his face. He scowled and lowered his face again. He walked on again, rubbing exhaustion out of his eyes. He paused for a break and heard a noise his footsteps had been covering up. It was a soft plip-plip noise, like a drop of water falling into a puddle. It was coming from somewhere ahead of him. He strained his ears toward the noise and shuffled forward, keeping his own noise to a minimum. The noise slowly got louder, though the plips became slower and slower. His mind was a mantra of plip-plip....plip.... plip-plip...plip, his eyes were trained on the ground to watch his step, and his jaw was hard-set. He paused. The plipping was right before him, slowed almost to a stop. He lifted his face, arms rigid at his sides. First he saw feet. Then he saw legs and hips, curved just so, a slightly pudgy waist and slender-wristed arms, strong yet delicate. That rope cutting into her smooth neck, her rounded chin and her smooth jaw, her slightly glistening lips, that teal tongue he'd seen so many times. Those smooth cheeks, framed by angled hair, her eyes staring more blankly than ever, half-lidded. Her lashes, thick and long, were glossed with traces of teal tears. Blood ran down one side of her face in an almost dried stream from a wound on her forehead, a deep dent in her smooth temple. He reached out and grabbed her hand, felt her cold fingers in his warm ones, stared into her dead eyes. He hadn't even realized he'd started crying. Tiny rivers were flowing down his face, his mouth twitching down into a grimace of despair. He hugs her body, face pressed against her stomach as her feet knock against his knees. He gives up on staying silent and sobs loudly, reaching up to pet her hair and promising revenge to a dead girl. One day, he promises, he'll pay him back for this. He stays pressed against her until the soft honks get to him and he has to take off down the catwalk.

So close. He can see the light getting brighter with every level of catwalk he ascends. Once he gets to the lab he promises himself he'll defend anyone who's left, anyone at all. Just a few more levels and he'll be there. He'll do anything. Nobody else is going to die. If everyone is dead...If...It'll be time for a last stand. He sets his face in an expression of grim determination and runs the last few catwalks, almost slipping off time and again. He has to know. He has to finally stand up. For Sollux. For Terezi. For everyone.

He stands in the doorway to the main hub and looks around. The blood trails between transportalizer pads are back again, but he doesn't pay them any mind. Gamzee isn't here. That's all that matters. He marches back to the computer lab's transportalizer pad and readies himself. He sees the flash of light. At first his brain can't comprehend what he sees, then warm arms wrap around his neck and every time he tries to open his mouth, delicate fingers pap his chin back up. Tears trickle down his cheeks, and a long teal tongue licks them away. 

"You didn't answer any of my messages!" she chides, smacking him over the head,"Don't EVER make me worry like that again!" He sputters, eyes wide as the moon. His muscles loosen, then he hugs her hard enough to make her whine and smack him over the head again. He's crying and burying his face in her neck and shaking like a leaf. Sollux forces the two of them to take a seat in the horn pile via psionics, and strolls over to join them. "Tz told me you were freaking the fuck out about gamzee earlier, then you juth went offline. Care to explain?" He asks,lounging in the pile. Feferi feels the need to jump on Sollux and join in the feelings jam, too. "You were acting weird earlier,too. Whath up?" He looks at Karkat with rare compassion, dropping the snark to be a good friend as he lets Feferi get comfy under his arm. One by one, almost everyone joins in on the feelings jam, except Vriska and Aradia. Nepeta drags Equius over by force, though. Karkat feels crowded and suffocated and so happy and relieved that he could cry, so he does. He feels Terezi's warm hands rubbing his back, Sollux's hand gently shaking his shoulder, hears Nepeta purring above him. Kanaya gently reaches out to pat his arm, muttering comforting little words of almost motherly advice. "I'll tell you later, I just...Let's all just...stay like this for a bit, please?" Karkat mutters, looking at all of them, smiling awkwardly. Most concede and cuddle up, some leave. Karkat rolls onto his back and wraps one arm around Terezi and forcefully tugs Sollux into a x2 hug combo. "Hey, whoa, I'm not a hug perthon!" Sollux protests, but Feferi pushes him into the hug with a laugh, ignoring Eridan sulking opposite her on the pile. Karkat thinks things couldn't be more perfect right now. He cautiously looks further over to Gamzee, who's been staring straight at him the entire time. That lazy grin is still almost uncomfortable. The way his pupils dilate and contract unnerves him. He makes a mental note to keep a close eye on Gamzee from now on.

For now, though, he could relax and enjoy the cuddle-pile.


End file.
